Weekly Fishing Report

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June 7, 2003 - Well gang it's been about a year since I last wrote a
report/story. Just seemed like nothing new and interesting was happening
but was probably basic laziness on my part. So here goes. Three guys wanted
to go out and get some action and of coarse I would have just as soon gone
for all or nothing (Blue marlin) but they were the customer so off we went.
The King bite had been good inshore for about two weeks so we headed out
about five miles and dropped in a few rapala's and three ribbon fish. Hit
all my close in hot spots with the result being one kingfish. It was a
little choppy but otherwise a sunny hot day with the wind out of the North.
Blowing out of the North for the last three days had really killed the
bite all over. People even complaining about the Snapper bite.

Well it looked like we might get a King every hour or so, so the decision
was to head for Blue water down at Southern. Kind of a risk hoping the
winds would lighten up by late afternoon or it would be a long rough ride
in. Made Southern in about an hour and a half and put out two Rapala's,
three Ballyhoo and a feather. Past the rig, up the structure over and over
again. Two other boats in the area and they looked like they were having
the same luck as us. Finally a strike. Bonito, then later another, etc.
One small Dolphin among the scattered weeds and that was about it.
Just nothing interesting around. I looked around and found ourselves alone.
Funny feeling when everybody leaves an area. If you stay and the bite comes
on you look like a hero, if you hang around and it never gets any better
you look kind of dumb. What to do.

The guys were hanging in there, no Green faces today but I could tell
they needed some action so we decided to troll over to Hospital Rocks and
try our luck on the bottom. Not one strike on the 7 mile troll but when
we hit the first structure the bottom looked full of fish and there was
some bait popping on the surface. So we hauled the lines and baited
rigged to bottom fish. Strange drift with the seas moving North and the
wind moving South. Didn't really move much drifting. What a dead spot.
Couldn't even get a strike. We changed bait thinking maybe yesterdays left
oven's smelled bad or something. Nothing! It was looking like it might
be one of those dreaded slow days.

So we pulled them in and tried another spot. Finally we had a good long
drift and the Snapper were there. I think maybe we had one undersized fish
on the first drift. There is always one guy who seems to have a knack for
bottom fishing and we had one. He just seemed to catch them all. Then one
of the other guys seemed to catch on and the party was on. Now Mr. J just
seemed to be Mr. Bad Luck. Every time he would hook up it would be a big
one and would proceed to loose it half way up. I was drifting out a few
Ballyhoo while we hit the bottom hoping for something interesting. Eventually
we got a shark. After that I think I went through 10 Ballyhoo and rigs
loosing fish on the drift. Sometimes they would come back and hit two or
three times and sometimes they would just cut through the mono leader.
I was convinced they were shark's. I was running out of Mono leaders so
I put out a wire one thinking this will teach jaws to steal my tackle.
Another nice 4' shark in the boat was the result.. And Mr. unlucky actually
got his first Snapper about then. Of coarse it was undersized so we let
him work the shark hoping he would loose it, but he didn't.

Running out of Ballyhoo leaders I put one out I had made with 400 lb
mono leader material. No sooner then it was out about 40 feet we had another
Shark on. It really fought hard so it had to be a lot bigger. I offered
it to Mr. Bad Luck but he wasn't in the mood to fight a shark. Nobody seemed
to want to fight this fish so I proceeded too. It was wearing me out so
I asked the deck hand to work it for awhile and it wore him out. I thought
about tightening the drag and getting it over with but resisted the temptation.
I took over for awhile more but it plum wore me out again so back to the
deck hand. We were all looking forward to getting this exercise over with
so we could get back to bottom fishing, so I tightened the drag just a
little bit. Well he went under the boat, around the back, under the boat
again, etc. Finally some color.. It was a big WAHOOOOO. I screamed Wahoo
and grabbed the rod away from the deck hand and told him to get on the
gaff. Meanwhile two of the guys had put down bottom rigs and guess where
the Wahoo headed. So we were tangled up pretty good and I kept yelling
"stick him". My deck got a good gaff on, grunted out loud as he hauled
a beautiful Wahoo into the boat. Now Mr. Unlucky just stood there saying
"I thought it was a Shark!". This guy is really not very lucky but
it gave us something to kid about all day.

About then we could see fish under the boat about thirty feet so we
rigged for kings and got a ton of them. A ling wandered by about then and
hit a ribbon fish offered to him right away. We left him in the water
trying to decide if it would make 37 inches. We finally decided to try
for a mild gaff but failed and stuck him pretty good. 36 inches laying
on the deck and we had to send him back. There was a real big Porpose hanging
around and I think he enjoyed the lunch. Well the bite was really coming
on but it was getting late. The seas had calmed down and it looked like
it would be an easy run into Port Aransas. Picture of the day at my web
page wahooooo.com. It was just one of those great days when the weather
was excellent, the company good, and the bite came on and saved us.

Wahoo Bob reporting from the bilge's of the wahooooo.com somewhere on
Padre Island

June 15, 2002 - I haven't really had anything unique to write about
since January until today. Old time customer had ordered two boats for
their annual male bonding, beer drinking fishing trip. And of coarse a
little gambling between the two boats. The boat with the most pounds of
fish would win. Around 6:30am we were all ready to go and the other captain
said they were heading to the Cities Service rig to Amberjack fish and
whatever else they could get. They had me really worried that not only
would they win the day but might embarrass us at the dock too. With these
thoughts in mind we headed out.

Forecast had been for pretty lousy weather, but as usual it was wrong.
Seas were the calmest I've seen this year. On Friday we hadn't been able
to find any weed lines or rips to chase wahoo and dorado so I decided to
make the the easy decision and head to the rocks to bottom fish. We've
had a lot of luck getting big sharks in this area and if we could boat
one we might win the day. With calm seas we made the Hosp Rocks area in
about two hours.

Now these guys know how to party. At least one case of beer was gone
by the time we started fishing. No wind and flat seas. It was great.. Mel
my deck for this year actually got some sleep on the fly bridge on the
way out. I think she had averaged about three hours sleep for the last
four days. Been working her hard. I've got to say ol Mel is probably the
best deck I've had since I started chartering five years ago and not bad
too look at either. If you fish with me this year you'all enjoy having
her on board.

Anyway Mel woke up about a mile short of lines in and got to work rigging
for the day. We drifted out a ballyhoo and ribbon and sent the rest to
the bottom. Well we had a problem. The lines would go straight down for
about 30 feet and then a strong drift would pull them straight out.. To
add to our problems we were drifting the short way over the structures
so we would have to pull in the lines often and move the boat back to the
starting point. And I hadn't seen anything interesting enough on the way
out to give us any alternatives, so we were committed.

Down went the lines to work the bottom. One of the customers chose to
drift a ribbon way out and hope for something interesting. We got a lot
of small snapper and finally a few keepers. Mel was kept busy untangling
all the lines while the beer flowed. Not sure how she kept with six guys
snokered and tangling all day. But what a fun group, these guys know how
to have a good time. As soon as we got a good shark bait on the boat we
drifted it out with a slip sinker and hoped jaws would find it. Left the
115 with 130 lb line in clicker mode only.

Some more snapper in the boat and Fred had something take his drifted
ribbon and the battle was on. As he got the fish close to the boat all
hands were yelling "Shark" between gulps of beer.. The mistake we all make
when we first see a ling at distance. Of coarse this really woke up ol
Mel since she has developed the nickname "Shark Queen" around the docks.
The Fred yells "Ling" and of coarse everybody forgot what the were doing
and ran to the Port side of the boat. Well the enavdable happened while
Fred was yelling "get your lines in". I don't think the ling missed tangling
one line we had out. And while trying to get in gaff range straightened
the hook. Kind of a downer and it got quiet for awhile while the job of
untangling the mess went on.

Back to the bottom with some more lines looking for the big one. Click.
Click, click. Click, click, click went the shark rig we had out. Well there
was also an individual bet on the biggest fish of the day so everybody
was grabbing at the rod while I'm trying to get it into freespool to give
jaws time to swallow the bait. I finally won the battle and let him take
about 100 yards before setting the hook. We had em!!! And it was a big
one. Taking the 130 line like it was on a 30. "Who wants it?" led to another
struggle between the anglers and the pillow boy won. I call him the pillow
boy since he would suck down the beer and fall asleep on the couch hugging
a pillow on his belly off and on during the day. The pillow boy is
really a cool guy. Had tee shirts with a picture of my boat on it made
for the charter. The XXL shirt really fit me well but hung a little on
Mel at 4'4" and 90 lbs. It was really neat. Anyway within a few minutes
the shark got off. Turned out I hadn't waited long enough to set the hook
and we never really had it. All we got was the bait back with some big
jaw marks. But we still had a lot of time so we all went back to work.

The drifted ribbon finally produced a kingfish so every body wanted
to drift now. We kept two lines on the bottom and the rest went out for
kings. With all these lines out I put one ballyhoo out forward on the bridge
without a rod holder with a real light drag. Didn't want to loose a 114
and rod. Meanwhile Herb had something else big on the drifted ribbon fish.
In came the head of a nice kingfish. Jaws was still lurking around. About
then the 114 up on the fly bridge went off screaming and we had another
king. Things were looking up. Then ol Herb came through again and we got
a nice AJ. A little later and a few more snapper and Fred did it again
with another Ling! Looked undersized too me but we got it on board this
time and it was just over the limit. Everybody was pretty excited with
the catch and we still had a few hours to go. I was guessing that the other
boat might get 5 Amberjack and some other catch for between 100 and 150
pounds of fish and we were looking at the real possibility of winning but
needed a good big heavy shark to ensure the win.

Move the boat back to start for another of many drifts and put out the
some spread. Except we had only one bottom rig out. Lines everywhere drifting
ballyhoo and ribbonfish. So I put out another Ballyhoo forward on the bridge
with the same ol light drag setting. The guy working the bottom was mumbling
about loosing his bait again and starting to wind up the 200' feet from
the bottom. Somebody yelled "Ling!" off the Port side of the boat. Then
three at once yelling "Big Ling!". I was turning to look when all I heard
was ziiinnnngggg and saw out of the corner of my eye the 114 on the fly
bridge flying through the air and into the drink. Mel yells "Want me to
dive in for it?". Figured it was gone and I said "Been thinking about some
new tackle anyway."

With the excitement over the guy on the bottom rig had hooked the bottom
and was just loosing line as the boat drifted. I took the rod and tightened
the drag to see if I could pull it off the rocks on the bottom. You loose
a lot of rigging bottom fishing and I hate to waste it without trying..
But when I put my hands on the line and pulled it seemed like I was getting
a little . It was only 30 lb line and I really cinched down on it and got
a few more feet. It dawned on me the possibility that it had snagged the
rod that went over and was just dead weight. So I turned it over to one
of the anglers and he went to work. Just plain dead weight. Mel went to
the bridge and backed up the boat from time to time to help get some line.
I was kind of hoping the line would break so we could get back to fishing.
A little rip with a few weeds had been forming and we drifted over it each
time we moved back to go and it might hold wahoo and dorado. And I was
looking forward to trolling it a little.

Finally after what seemed an hour we saw line. "THE BOTTOM RIG
HAD ONE SMALL HOOK ON IT AND HAD A PIECE OF LINE THAT LOOKED LIKE
IT CAME FROM THE 114!!!" . The line went off like a big "V" in two directions.
Mmmmmm. Wonder which angle to pull in first. We rigged a swivel off another
rod on the line in case I had to let go. Another person wrapped the gaff
on the line just for insurance. For some reason I guessed the right side
and started hand lining into the boat. A lot of line was out and it was
really piling up on the deck. None of us could believe our luck at having
the real possibility of retrieving the rod and reel. It would make a good
story. It was just dead weight so I was sure I had the rod end of the line.
All of a sudden I saw color and saw a fish. As I got line it got bigger
and bigger. I started yelling "BIG WAHOO!!!". And it got bigger. Everybody
was yelling "GIANT WAHOO!!" about then. Somebody had the sense to open
the transom door since it was going to be too big to pull over the side.
I couldn't believe I was hand lining something this big, but it was tired
and not showing much life. I got it to the back of the boat and ask for
a gaff. I could just see the fish getting off and I started yelling "Somebody
get me a GDMF gaff. Mel had run to the cabin to get the camera and finally
somebody produced the backup gaff and I dragged it through the door. What
a celebration. Hoop's and yells for the longest time. What a beautiful
fish we had. Nobody was ever going to believe this one. I mumbled "I'd
rather be lucky than good" with no comment from my mate Mel. Last time
I said that she came back with "I'd rather be good, luck runs out".

Tones of pictures, the big ol Wahoo in the bag , we got back to fishing.
Talk about a good mood. Great fish, great company and perfect weather.
If all days were like this I'd be in haven. Few more kings and tangled
lines and it was time to head for the docks. The real issue that drove
us to head in was the beer was getting short and I didn't want to face
the potential mutiny. Well the boat just wouldn't come up on plane with
all the weight of six big guys and a bunch of fish. And the he pump out
on the fish box had failed so were also holding a lot of cold water. It
was pretty calm so I asked for volunteers to go up forward and get some
sun for the ride in. With five big guys on the bow we finally got up to
20 knots for the smooth ride in. As we approached the dock Mate Mel blasted
"Who let the dogs out:" on the stereo and the celebration was on. I knew
the weigh in would be close and it turned out we lost to the other boat
by less than five pounds. But, we had a moral victory with the Wahoo and
everybody waited for the official weight. 85 pounds! Three pounds bigger
than any other I've had on the boat. So everyone felt like a winner for
the day and had a lasting story to tell.

If you want to see a picture of the wahoo, drop by www.wahoo-charters.com
and have a look.

Wahoobob and the Sharkqueen Mel reporting from the bilge's of
the wahooooo.com somewhere on Padre Island.

Jan 18, 2002 - We all know the tuna season has not developed this winter
and we just keep hoping any day may be the day. I had just recently
returned from the South Pacific Marlin fishing and was really suprised
at how warm it was. Then the forecast started looking like we may get some
good weather this spring. It was with these thoughts that I got a call
from an old friend Rob Landingham, owner of a Hatteras somewhat like mine
but also had a 30' Grady, saying that he and Matt his new Capt wanted to
know if I'd like to join them offshore the next day. I took some time and
it looked like it may be nice day offshore so I dived in.

Friday morning after looking at the satellite photo's we had a long
discussion on weather to take to 80's or lighter tackle. Matt and I finally
agreed, you never know there might be an early Blue out there, so go with
the heavy tackle. Tuna was really on our mind but there just haven't been
around. Maybe today would be the day. Off we went and broke the jetties
about 8:00am. The chop was close with 2.5' seas with some whitecaps. The
Grady found a home where it could make about 24 knots about 120 degrees.
So it looked like the dumping grounds was out and Southern in. About 2/3rd
of the way out in 160 feet of water we spotted a shrimp fleet. Decided
to make a troll around and see if there were any fish.

Before we started trolling we had our answer. Lot of chum on the surface
around the boat with nothing hitting it. But we gave it the ol college
try with expected results. There were some more shrimp boats in the area
but we all decided to give Southern a try. We had been experiencing a lot
of weeds and were hoping Southern might be clear. The water temp was up
to 69 degrees about 10 miles short of our destination. A good sign. About
5 miles off Southern we broke out of the weeds and the sun started breaking
through the clouds. Out with the Tuna and Wahoo spread. One Mann's 50,
one small Rapala, one Pakula, Texas Turd and one Ballyhoo.

As we passed over the structure there were no other boats in sight and
the water was Blue Gray. Really didn't look bad for this time of year.
No action over the structure so we decided to make a pass over around the
rig and cross our fingers the winter wahoo may be around. We hadn't heard
any wahoo reports of late but some day has to be the first. First pass
the center went of with a bang. The fish on was jumping and taking a ton
of line on a Penn 80 wide. We all were thinking big barracuda since it
broke so much water but they are really rare this time of year. Rob and
were convinced it was a big wahoo but Matt held to the barracuda theory.
Anyway it got off, after looking over the lure it was beat up but we really
couldn't decide what it was. Another pass and we had two fish on just houndogging
off and jumping. This was really strange.

I figured we were hooking wahoo and a shark of very big cuda was chasing
and eating our fish. Lost the Texas Turd completely and the other got off
after some big tugs. We were now convinced something was eating our catch.
Another pass and we lost a ballyhoo rig and a Mann's 30 to big strikes.
I was getting concerned the bite may turn off before we ever got a fish
to the boat. Finally a good hookup and we brought a wahoo to the boat,
or two thirds of one. Back end had been bitten off. But now we knew we
were into the Spring Wahoo. Man were we excited. We now had out two ballyhoo,
pakula, manns'30 and a rapala. Next pass we hooked three and the took off
jumping again. There was a very big fish chasing everyone of our hookup,s.
This produced one whole wahoo and another 2/3rd fish.

We started working future out in the middle of nowhere to get off the
shark, sharks. Next pass we had multiple bites again and got two nice 40
lb Wahoo. So far the big ones had gotten off and all we had were about
the same size. Lost another Mann's 30 and a wire Ballyhoo rig. Matt made
us some with 160 lb wire and we smarted using them with great success.
We finally had a triple and got them all in, in one piece. By now it was
warm and we started disregarding some cloths. Sun, 75 degrees and the water
temp was up to 70.5, very warm for this time of year. Maybe we'll have
an early fishing season this year like 1998. We set a limit of 10 Wahoo
and worked toward that goal. I kept expecting the bite to die off, but
it didn't. It did slow a little around noon and I finally got one of those
splashing strikes around the rig. Well I love being wrong, a Barracuda.
Couldn't believe it, this early in the year. For the first time I got excited
about
the prospects of 2002.

Well we got out 10 but had lost all of the real big ones. Things had
slowed a little and we decided to head home. It was 2:00pm. But you know
how it is, just one more pass over the structure while kp'ing the boat
up. Bam, one more fish on. Hit a nice Ballyhoo. You could tell this was
a good sized one. It turned out to be the big fish of the day. What a great
day. So we headed in at 30 knots to arrive in time to get some good pictures
and finish up before dark. I proceeded to the Banana Bar to celebrate with
a few cold ones and dream of an early Marlin bite. Need to get home and
start working on the winter projects and get the Wahooooo.com offshore.

Wahoobob reporting from the Bilge's of the Wahooooo.com somewhere on
Padre Island

PS: Word got out and boats got caught in bad weather the next day, someone
caught a 160 lb Mako at Big Southern, others returned at 4 knots to the
harbor. Sunday Matt and Landingham went back down to Southern and got 7
Wahoo including one at 103 lbs!!!!!!!!!